If I asked you to write down a list of the things that divide us, I bet you could do so pretty quickly. Things that divide us as a nation. As a Church. As families. Things that divide even us as individuals.
Paul is writing to a divided. One of the beautiful gifts of the Church in Corinth is that it was diverse. Yet, because Jews and Greeks, male and females, poor and rich were gathering together - people started trying to one-up each other. They wanted to make the Church like the world - defining who was the most elite. Who had the most power. Instead of seeing the Church as a way to transform the world.
Today, we have very similar struggles in the Church and we are equally in need of hearing these scriptures as those in Corinth long ago. We have tried to cut off disunity by calling uniformity - but that isn't how God created us to be. Or we dismiss those who disagree with us. Or we simply leave the body of Christ because of our own hurt feelings.
Paul reminds us that there is another way - one that is bound together by the love of Jesus Christ.
How could the unity of the body of Christ be a witness to a divided world?
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